Club hockey’s third-period surge beats St. Joseph’s

Temple earned its third win of the season in a 7-5 come-from-behind victory against St. Joseph’s on Saturday night at Hatfield Ice in Colmar, Pennsylvania.

The Owls (3-1) played their first game in the 2017 Philadelphia College Hockey Showcase on Saturday and will continue play Sunday against Drexel University at 2:40 p.m.

After killing two early penalties in the third, Temple tied the game at four on a shot fired from the point by defenseman Jasen Ferguson. St. Joseph’s retook the lead with about 12 minutes left, and the game remained tied until Temple junior forward Patrick Devlin scored on a redirect on the power play with three minutes, 55 seconds left.

“I saw it was high in the air, and I knew it was gonna miss the net,” Devlin said. “So I put my stick up just trying to get it on net because I knew it was gonna go wide, and I got lucky.”

Devlin’s tally started a stretch of three goals in a row. Freshman forward Brendan Ondick scored his second goal of the game before Devlin added an empty-net goal.

Senior forward Joey Powell scored his fourth goal in the first period to help the Owls get a two-goal lead. The Owls outshot the Hawks 24-9 in the first period, but St. Joseph’s made up its deficit in shots to finish the game with 45 compared to Temple’s 47.

After losing its lead, Temple overcame deficits of 3-2, 4-3 and 5-4. St. Joseph’s scored three goals in a row to open the second period, including two in the first five minutes.

Coach Mark Spease said the team used a defensive trap after it got the two-goal lead about halfway through the first period, but Temple didn’t do it in the second.

“I wasn’t happy, but they came back and they battled and that’s a testimony to them,” Spease said. “But it was not a good hockey game for us. I’m really proud of the guys for coming back and bouncing back and getting the W, but the second period is gonna haunt me and I probably won’t sleep tonight.”

“We started off pretty rough and I knew we needed a couple goals to end the game,” Devlin said. “So I tried to help out the team at the end, and it ended up pretty good after a pretty bad game.”

Joe Edinger

can be reached at joseph.edinger@temple.edu
Or you can follow Joe on Twitter @JoeEd81
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